There’s been a palpable sense of panic among Prince William and Kate’s political base, the sycophantic royal reporters who feel their only job is propping up an angry egg and his bewigleted wife. Maybe I’m being generous, but I do believe that there are some royal reporters who genuinely understand that the events of the past month have irreparably altered the Windsors’ standing and public trust. But as we’ve seen time and time again, these people are short-sighted and unimaginative – they can’t see that there’s money to be made from doing honest coverage of the monarchy’s death rattle. So instead, they trudge along, writing their sympathetic “Poor Prince Huevo” pieces. Becky English had a doozy, published on Wednesday: “What William really thinks about the Kate conspiracy theories. And why it’s been so heartbreaking for him to see her reputation trashed in the same way as Diana’s.” Can someone tell William that his own mismanagement and tone-deaf messaging has done the most damage to his wife’s reputation?
William has had such a difficult four years: All this against the backdrop of a series of devastating losses, beginning with the death of the Duke of Edinburgh in 2021 (always a tower of strength for the princess, to whom he frequently wrote fond letters, as well as William) and then his irreplaceable grandmother and sounding board, Queen Elizabeth, the following year.
The grief of exiling a brother who refused to divorce his wife on William’s orders: There has been grief, too – well, at least a form of it – at the devastating defection of Prince Harry, whose almost primeval need to snipe, strike and rile his brother and sister-in-law, to whom he was once so close, has been one of the most devastating sucker punches of them all. Sure, William’s heart has been hardened and his resolve reaffirmed when it comes to his sibling, particularly after his disloyalty to Catherine in his bile-fest of a memoir, Spare. But it is important not to underestimate, friends tell me, just how much of a form of bereavement it has been.
The weight of the world on his hunched shoulders: But having covered the Royal Family for so long you do get to pick up the signs, and it was clear that William was also a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I know he is angry, frustrated and, yes, deeply disappointed, at what has transpired over recent weeks. ‘When will it all stop?’ he is said to have asked. William has worked hard over the years to ring-fence his family and protect them from the worst excesses of public scrutiny. While he doesn’t have an easy relationship with the British media, he has learnt to work with us professionally – and has, rightly, been afforded unprecedented privacy for a publicly funded national figure.
William always hoped to control all of the media: William has now learnt the hard way that this degree of control does not extend to the sump of social media – let alone foreign publications and even prime-time US television – which are simply not subject to a fraction of the same regulation as news outlets here. Most worrying for the prince and his team is the way that the worst sniggering excesses of internet trollism have broken through the barrier and appear to now be controlling a particularly spiteful form of public discourse.
William’s own-goals: Of course, there have been a few own-goals on the way. I’ve been clear in my view that Kensington Palace were desperately naive in thinking one of the most famous – and, let us not forget, much-loved – women in the world could disappear from public view for three months and people not talk about it. Do we have a right to know what’s been wrong with the Princess of Wales? Absolutely not. But might it not have been prudent to consider a slightly more informative approach in order to fill the vacuum that is now, inevitably, overflowing with rumour, conspiracy and bile?
An even more insular Huevo: The trouble is that approach doesn’t come naturally to William – who, insiders fear, will become ‘even more insular’ as a result of his wife’s experience. And after events of recent days, you can honestly sympathise. It’s also worth noting that while everyone hopes and prays for the King’s successful recovery (and from what I hear, currently, his spirits are excellent), Charles’s cancer diagnosis is a gnawing reminder for his son and heir of what is coming down the line, possibly faster than he ever feared. That’s a huge burden for William not just as a man, but also a husband and father of three young children, to bear.
Allow their actions to do the talking: For now the prince and his team are not minded to publicly react to what they describe as ‘the madness’, and feel their actions should do the talking. That said, I’m told they have not entirely ruled out making some kind of public statement in the coming weeks, ahead of Catherine’s return to public duties. There is much William would like to say. It has been tough for him to stand by and see his wife’s reputation shredded by the court of public opinion in the way his late mother’s once was.
Stop for a second and really think about how f–king bizarre all of this is. William is not a one-man royal office. He has a staff of dozens, if not hundreds at his disposal. He has a brand new private secretary from the diplomatic corps and access to the top Tory spinmasters. He also has an eager, sycophantic press corps openly telling him what they want from him and what he should do to simply change the narrative. He’s either too stupid, too stubborn or hidden option C to actually do the things he needs to do to get through this. Release the original Mother’s Day photos, release a clear, unedited photo or video of Kate, have Kate release a real message of thanks for all of the care and support she’s gotten, actually respect the British public enough to communicate with them directly in some way. Instead, he wants to whine, dither and throw a tantrum about how he still hates his brother and he’s mad that people actually want to know if his wife is alive. BTW, hidden option C is that William can’t do any of the things the media wants him to do because Kate is refusing or she’s incapacitated. Who even knows?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.